Interaction Between Tripeptide Gly-Gly-His and Cu2+ Probed by Microcantilevers

Gly-Gly-His tripeptide modified microcantilever was developed by carbodiimide attachment of the Gly-Gly-His tripeptide onto a 3-mercaptopropionic acid(MPA) modified gold surface. The interaction of peptide with Cu2+ ion was studied. At a relative high concentration of Cu2+, the cantilever bent toward the gold side initially as the N atom of imidazole ring and carboxyl group in different peptide coordinate with Cu2+, which results in a tensile surface stress. And then the reversed deflection of microcantilever was observed, which implies that the peptide-Cu2+ complex are formed with conformation transition. In another case, i.e., at a relative low concentration Of Cu2+, only the process of conformation transition was observed due to the coordination mode can not be formed initially. The influences of pH and salt concentration of the test solution on the performance of the sensor were studied. The results show that the maximum deflection was obtained at pH 7 and the bonding Of Cu2+ to the Gly-Gly-His tripeptide was inhibited due to the formation Of CuClx2-x.

微悬臂梁检测三肽Gly-Gly-His与Cu~(2+)的相互作用过程

将三肽Gly-Gly-His(GGH)共价键合到MPA修饰的微悬臂梁表面,研究了肽与Cu2+的相互作用过程。研究发现,在Cu2+浓度较高时,Cu2+能快速与不同肽链上的羧基和咪唑环配位,并通过连锁反应诱导悬臂梁向镀金面偏转;而后肽链上的氮原子与Cu2+配位,同时构象发生变化,由直链转变成折叠状,进而增加链间的作用力使悬臂梁反向偏转;而Cu2+浓度低时不能实现连锁反应诱导悬臂梁表面快速的形成向内的拉力,直接通过构象变化推动悬臂梁反向偏转。考察了溶液pH值、Cl-浓度对GGH与Cu2+作用的影响,结果表明,在pH7.0的条件下GGH与Cu2+作用导致悬臂梁偏转最大。Cl-的存在会与Cu2+形成CuCl2x?x配合物不易与肽链结合。

Polyimide structure-property relationships - I. Polyimide properties vs dianhydride configuration

X-ray crystal structures of 2,2',3,3'-and 3,3',4,4'-biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride (2,2',3,3'- and 3,3',4,4'-BPDA) were determined. The dianhydride isomers have different symmetry caused by difference in two anhydride group positions and the dihedral angles between the two phenyl rings are 62.9 degrees for 2,2',3,3',-BPDA and 0 degrees for 3,3',4,4'-BPDA respectively. The polyimides from 2,2',3,3'-BPDA exhibit enhanced solubility, higher thermal stability, and higher glass transition temperature (T-g) compared with those from 3,3',4,4'-BPDA.

以Cyclo(L-Phe-L-His)催化的芳香氰醇不对称合成

以改进的方法合成了环状二肽(CycloL-Phe-L-His),它在苯甲醛和间苯氧基苯甲醛的不对称氰醇化反应中显示了高活性和高对映选择性。研究了各种反应条件对该催化剂活性和选择性的影响,考察了催化剂的回收使用,旋光稳定性和化学稳定性,探索了催化剂结构与性能间的关系。

左中部梭状回枕颞沟内皮质对汉字加工的必要性、选择性和作用性质

A number of functional neuroimaging studies with skilled readers consistently showed activation to visual words in the left mid-fusiform cortex in occipitotemporal sulcus (LMFC-OTS). Neuropsychological studies also showed that lesions at left ventral occipitotemporal areas result in impairment in visual word processing. Based on these empirical observations and some theoretical speculations, a few researchers postulated that the LMFC-OTS is responsible for instant parallel and holistic extraction of the abstract representation of letter strings, and labeled this piece of cortex as “visual word form area” (VWFA). Nonetheless, functional neuroimaging studies alone is basically a correlative rather than causal approach, and lesions in the previous studies were typically not constrained within LMFC-OTS but also involving other brain regions beyond this area. Given these limitations, it remains unanswered for three fundamental questions: is LMFC-OTS necessary for visual word processing? is this functionally selective for visual word processing while unnecessary for processing of non-visual word stimuli? what are its function properties in visual word processing? This thesis aimed to address these questions through a series of neuropsychological, anatomical and functional MRI experiments in four patients with different degrees of impairments in the left fusiform gyrus. Necessity: Detailed analysis of anatomical brain images revealed that the four patients had differential foci of brain infarction. Specifically, the LMFC-OTS was damaged in one patient, while it remained intact in the other three. Neuropsychological experiments showed that the patient with lesions in the LMFC-OTS had severe impairments in reading aloud and recognizing Chinese characters, i.e., pure alexia. The patient with intact LMFC-OTS but information from the left visual field (LVF) was blocked due to lesions in the splenium of corpus callosum, showed impairment in Chinese characters recognition when the stimuli were presented in the LVF but not in the RVF, i.e. left hemialexia. In contrast, the other two patients with intact LMFC-OTS had normal function in processing Chinese characters. The fMRI experiments demonstrated that there was no significant activation to Chinese characters in the LMFC-OTS of the pure alexic patient and of the patient with left hemialexia when the stimuli were presented in the LVF. On the other hand, this patient, when Chinese characters were presented in right visual field, and the other two with intact LMFC-OTS had activation in the LMFC-OTS. These results together point to the necessity of the LMFC-OTS for Chinese character processing. Selectivity: We tested selectivity of the LMFC-OTS for visual word processing through systematically examining the patients’ ability for processing visual vs. auditory words, and word vs. non-word visual stimuli, such as faces, objects and colors. Results showed that the pure alexic patients could normally process auditory words (expression, understanding and repetition of orally presented words) and non-word visual stimuli (faces, objects, colors and numbers). Although the patient showed some impairments in naming faces, objects and colors, his performance scores were only slightly lower or not significantly different relative to those of the patients with intact LMFC-OTS. These data provide compelling evidence that the LMFC-OTS is not requisite for processing non-visual word stimuli, thus has selectivity for visual word processing. Functional properties: With tasks involving multiple levels and aspects of word processing, including Chinese character reading, phonological judgment, semantic judgment, identity judgment of abstract visual word representation, lexical decision, perceptual judgment of visual word appearance, and dictation, copying, voluntary writing, etc., we attempted to reveal the most critical dysfunction caused by damage in the LMFC-OTS, thus to clarify the most essential function of this region. Results showed that in addition to dysfunctions in Chinese character reading, phonological and semantic judgment, the patient with lesions at LMFC-OTS failed to judge correctly whether two characters (including compound and simple characters) with different surface features (e.g., different fonts, printed vs. handwritten vs. calligraphy styles, simplified characters vs. traditional characters, different orientations of strokes or whole characters) had the same abstract representation. The patient initially showed severe impairments in processing both simple characters and compound characters. He could only copy a compound character in a stroke-by-stroke manner, but not by character-by-character or even by radical-by-radical manners. During the recovery process, namely five months later, the patient could complete the abstract representation tasks of simple characters, but showed no improvement for compound characters. However, he then could copy compound characters in a radical-by-radical manner. Furthermore, it seems that the recovery of copying paralleled to that of judgment of abstract representation. These observations indicate that lesions of the LMFC-OTS in the pure alexic patients caused several damage in the ability of extracting the abstract representation from lower level units to higher level units, and the patient had especial difficulty to extract the abstract representation of whole character from its secondary units (e.g., radicals or single characters) and this ability was resistant to recover from impairment. Therefore, the LMFC-OTS appears to be responsible for the multilevel (particularly higher levels) abstract representations of visual word form. Successful extraction seems independent on access to phonological and semantic information, given the alexic patient showed severe impairments in reading aloud and semantic processing on simple characters while maintenance of intact judgment on their abstract representation. However, it is also possible that the interaction between the abstract representation and its related information e.g. phonological and semantic information was damaged as well in this patient. Taken together, we conclude that: 1) the LMFC-OTS is necessary for Chinese character processing, 2) it is selective for Chinese character processing, and 3) its critical function is to extract multiple levels of abstract representation of visual word and possibly to transmit it to phonological and semantic systems.

Creation of Computer Animation from Story Descriptions

This report describes a computer system that creates simple computer animation in response to high-level, vague, and incomplete descriptions of films. It makes its films by collecting and evaluating suggestions from several different bodies of knowledge. The order in which it makes its choices is influenced by the focus of the film. Difficult choices are postponed to be resumed when more of the film has been determined. The system was implemented in an object-oriented language based upon computational entities called "actors". The goal behind the construction of the system is that, whenever faced with a choice, it should sensibly choose between alternatives based upon the description of the film and as much general knowledge as possible. The system is presented as a computational model of creativity and aesthetics.

Toward A Model Of Children's Story Comprehension

How does a person answer questions about children's stories? For example, consider 'Janet wanted Jack's paints. She looked at the picture he was painting and said 'Those paints make your picture look funny.' The question to ask is 'Why did Janet say that?'. We propose a model which answers such questions by relating the story to background real world knowledge. The model tries to generate and answer important questions about the story as it goes along. Within this model we examine two questions about the story as it goes along. Within this model we examine two problems, how to organize this real world knowledge, and how it enters into more traditional linguistic questions such as deciding noun phrase reference.

Iterative vs Simultaneous Fuzzy Rule Induction

M. Galea and Q. Shen. Iterative vs Simultaneous Fuzzy Rule Induction. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems, pages 767-772.

'Politics, Passion, Prejudice: Alice Childress's Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White'

Cashman, N. (2009). 'Politics, Passion, Prejudice: Alice Childress's Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White', Journal of American Studies, 43, 3, pp. 407?423 Sponsorship: APRS

Hugh Blaker: Doing his Bit for the Moderns

Meyrick, Robert, 'Hugh Blaker: Doing his Bit for the Moderns', Journal of the History of Collections (2004) 16(2):173-189 RAE2008

New Collected Poems of W. S. Graham

Francis, Matthew, New Collected Poems of W. S. Graham, (London: Faber and Faber, 2004 RAE2008

Keats, Cornwall and the 'Scent of Strong-Smelling Phrases'

Marggraf Turley, Richard, 'Keats, Cornwall and the 'Scent of Strong-Smelling Phrases,' Romanticism (2006) 12 (2), pp. 102-114 RAE2008